


Meditations on a Moment in Time

by Gail Riordan (lferion)



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Introspection, M/M, POV Alternating, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-10-03
Updated: 2000-10-03
Packaged: 2017-10-02 01:40:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/Gail%20Riordan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A word-picture from several points of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meditations on a Moment in Time

**Author's Note:**

> This piece was inspired by the photo-manip that was on the front page of the Master-Apprentice archive for a long time.
> 
> Thank you, Sockii, for the inspiration, Ruth for encouragement, Mark &amp; Destina for the editing &amp; input. Destina gets extra thanks for helping me figure out the real title.
> 
> Originally posted in 2000. Also published in "Rituals and Meditations" -- a TPM zine.
> 
> Ambiance: Adams - Harmonielehre, Copland - Inscape

Year of the Republic 24,982

> \--An exerpt from Master Peyrr's 'An Introduction and Overview of Meditational Forms' in _"Foundations of the Force; Essays on the History and Development of Formal Training Within the Jedi Order"_ Edited by Master Mirjen Nona, published 24,827.
> 
> The Force is within us and surrounds us, always; held and holding, touched and touching, as the child is held, as the parent-teacher-master holds. Living and Unifying, illumination and shadow, the Force **is** \- being and becoming.
> 
> It is the first position of meditation, the first taught, the first learned. The teacher, the elder, kneels comfortably - balanced, stable, centered - and the learner, the other, sits, kneels or stands within the circle of the elder's arms and energy. The physical closeness and the satisfaction of the body's need for touch frees the mind, heart and spirit to reach out and perceive - interact with - the things beyond the body, with the Force. Both face outward, eyes resting on whatever is before them. They share sight, sound, scent, even breath, as the elder patterns each inhale and exhale in slow, deep rhythm, communicated by touch. Learning to quiet the mind from a very young age, relearning it daily.
> 
> The crechemothers spend time every day with each pre-initiate child just like this. Initiate children learn solo meditation positions and techniques - focus, centering, observation, breathing, relaxation and movement within the moment - all rooted in this most basic lesson. Friends may meditate together, but independence within the Force is fostered and encouraged under close supervision.
> 
> Padawans and Masters return to this form of shared meditation. Early in the relationship, it is a way of building and strengthening the ties of trust and the connection within the Force needed for proper formation of the training bond. Later, certain lessons and assessments require both the physical and metaphysical closeness achieved most easily and safely through this means.
> 
> As the student grows in knowledge and strength, the need for this closeness lessens and becomes gradually obsolete. Indeed, one of the marks of approaching readiness for Knighthood is the diminishment of the bond itself.
> 
> Senior Padawans must demonstrate independence of more than thought and discernment from their Masters; they must also show clear ability to function within the Force, separate from undue considerations of Masterly approval. Trusting one's own perceptions and judgement of the will of the Force is essential.
> 
> Knights meditate alone. Single and at one with the Force. Even when sharing meditation - touching as friends or companions, entwined as lovers - there is separation, aloneness.
> 
> The paradox of singularity of self within the Unity of the Force is at the heart of both what it is and what it means to be Jedi. A Knight is always and never alone.
> 
> Masters learn to live within a greater paradox. Embraced within the Force, a Master must then embrace the student, but only enough - enough to strengthen, to heal, to comfort, to teach. To support, not strangle. Simultaneously separate and together, the Master must hold and know the reality of each of their singularity as well as their unity. To be a Master is to be always embracing and letting go.

##### Mace: 

They love each other.

Not that they are doing anything rash, anything physical or overt about it. They are both Jedi, and too well trained to be that selfish. And I believe they love each other too well.

If they loved less deeply or less completely, they could couple with our blessing, relieve each other's tension, make simple, joyful energy to give back to the Force. The Code does not forbid sex. It is passion that is proscribed: commitment to any thing or person or idea other than the call of the Force, the vowed and witnessed binding to the Light, the Code and the vocation to be Jedi. Ours is a singular relationship with the Force, one to one. A relationship that is reforged, re-promised, and renewed at every stage of training, with each initiation and ordination.

A Jedi is forged in a hot fire, and tempered in very chill waters. We cannot flinch. We cannot fail. "Do, or do not, there is no 'try'." And so, in this, they do not. Too much depends upon it.

With them, sex would not be simple. Hearts, not bodies; commitment, not mere physical relief.

And is it relief I feel that they do not? Fear that were they to act, the Code would crack, the foundations of the Temple tremble? That the sacrifices of generations would be proved to be in vain? No. I am a Master as well, have forged and been forged and tempered in that fire. What I feel is nothing so simple as relief.

Mastery is marked by the ability to hold, hammer, teach, train, love, _and then release_. It is a difficult thing. A harsher path, a higher, ultimately more lonely call than Knighthood. "The past creates the future in the moment." The Master must hold and know all three; the student need only participate in the moment, the now.

It wears on him, generous and affectionate man he is, that his student, held by fewer promises, may give what he cannot. Padawan Kenobi may offer and accept what Master Jinn, oathbound, honor bound, may neither offer nor allow himself to accept, lest all they have both worked for be undone. I see it in his eyes, in the unfaltering strength of his control, in the faint, perpetual ache he carries in his broad, willing back and those wide shoulders.

Were they to lose control, there would be no parting them. I fear they would be lost to us, lost to the Jedi (though not, I know, to the Light). The Council needs them, requires their knowledge, skill, love, duty. The Republic needs them as Knights, as powerful, independent and active agents, even as mavericks. The need of the many.

And I, Master Windu, Voice of the Jedi Council, I could not do as they do. I know in the depths of my heart, in the secret places of my spirit, that I do not have their strength. Not alone, and most certainly not as they are together. So I watch, and try to understand.

They meditate together, in the First Form. How can such vulnerability be anything other than a liability, a weakness? Yet with them, it is strength.

 

##### Obi-Wan: 

I am loved. I know this. He loves me. And I, him. Ever and always. In all ways. Existence without expression, actual in potential. In paradox. His words, not mine, but I have no words of my own for this.

I would laugh for joy, but he is holding me, we are meditating, so I laugh only inside, in potential, in the Force. I would not try his need too hard. Or, indeed, my own.

I find myself both pleased and frightened that I have that power, that I can test him so. And to think that once I believed he had no such needs, felt no such passion. That I, too, would grow up free of those distractions. But his is the calm of long struggle and sharp vigilance, not a lack but an abundance of desires to control and discipline. It is not freedom, and oh, I am not free. I am as bound to responsibility as he is.

It does seem that the lessons of philosophy and ethics apply more to me - to us - than all the straightforward data of the classes in sexuality and reproduction. Hormones and biochemistry made me laugh once, squirm, red with embarrassment, as I learned things I could not imagine needing to know. I know so much more now, and the need of the body - however ticklish or joyful - is never something to laugh _at_, only _with_, never a fit subject for ridicule or scorn.

My body desires his body, even as his desires mine. But we will not act upon this mutual desire, lest it become a distraction, bleeding away strength, shifting our focus.

We will not act, but neither will we part. We are careful and mindful of each other - in many things, but this in particular. I do not flaunt myself, nor am I over-modest. To do either would be a disservice to us both, to my training and his teaching. "Appreciation of beauty, in whatever form it may come, is a refreshment to the soul, a reminder of our purpose, and a necessary thing." So we are taught, and I believe and hold to this, even as he does. And my Master is beautiful in his age and strength, skill and grace. I know he finds beauty in me as well.

I do not picture him when I pleasure myself, and he does not imagine me. We are too close, and how could imagination match reality? Instead, we acknowledge and let go. And we meditate together, in the First Form. Touching, closer than bodies. As in dancing and fighting and healing we touch, and connect in so many ways. His hands have moulded me, made of me **what** I am even as the touch of his spirit has shaped so much of **who** I am.

I am loved, always. He is loved, in all ways. But I am not so serene that I do not sometimes wish for more.

 

##### Qui-Gon: 

The spirit is satisfied with propinquity, the flesh desires sensation, the mind thirsts for knowledge as the heart seeks connection. We are both spirit and flesh, intellect and emotion, and as manifest beings, present in time and matter and interpenetrated with Force. Of the Force. One with all and each other, in the greater scheme of things.

Our love is not in question. Our love **is**. I am, he is, **we** are: in the Moment, in the Now, cradled in and of the Force. Living and Unified.

There is little I have left to teach him, though much he has yet to learn. As there is so much **I** have still to learn. So much that he has taught me.

We breathe together, watching and not watching the sliding drops of the little fountain in this green and quiet space. Our ears take comfort in musical silence and thought calms in the warm fall of light. Our hearts beat together in simple time, this time, this now, without expectation or anticipation or anything other than unity in the moment. It is a gift, his presence in my arms, his light in my spirit, his laughter and joy in my mind, joined to my own light, in the Light. He has lit candles in so many places that had gone dark and cold.

Our lives allow too little joy. Our power, our perception, demands responsible use, to listen to and act within the will of the Force. To bring hope to those who have not, to defen those who cannot defend themselves, to find the path of justice - so many high, hard and lonely things. To look to and dwell on the future is to invite grief, for our calling is not to those places where peace and light and plenty already abound, but where we may bring them into being. When I tell him to keep his attention on the here and now, I am telling myself as much as him. When he knows that, when he lives within the awareness of self as fully as the awareness of unity, then he will be a Knight, trial or no.

We breathe together, held and holding, serene and alive and alight with the Force, with each other, a greater whole. Now, in this Moment, there is only Us, the Force, and the singing perfection of joy. Joined-ness. Love.

 

##### Yoda: 

Lie together, they do not. Yet, together, they are. The actions they do not take, keep them outwardly apart; those they do, inwardly together. Always together, flesh and Force. Brief time they have, but also forever.

Clouded the future is, but not without hope. I, too, love well my Padawan. Grieve I will the loss of the outward form and beauty. Grieve the Council will the loss of results, though not the arguments. Grieve the student will: for what could not be, what will be gone. The Force is strong in them. In the Force, lose each other they will not.

>   
>  \--Exerpt from 'Symbology and Iconology in the Creche' by Master Li'Ra K'kesal, 24,954 
> 
> Legend says that the First Form of Meditation was taught to the First Seeker by the Force itself, that z'Jhedhai knelt in the garden only to be enfolded in arms both manifest and immanent, present and transcendent, visible and invisible, and sustained, comforted and taught in that manner until all of the First Principles were imparted.
> 
> Plate Five shows a typical example of this: a figure kneeling in the Learner position of the First Form, picked out in dust colors - cream, brown, ochre, umber, tan - and haloed by a translucent blue glow. (Lightpainting, Coruscant Main Temple)
> 
> Scholars interpret this image as a purely symbolic representation, and grant little credence to the legend. The Jedi themselves remain silent on the subject.

 

***  
End

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Proceed with Caution, Master Obi-Wan](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6570877) by [Cobalt_Djinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cobalt_Djinn/pseuds/Cobalt_Djinn)




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